College Hill residents held their first open house meeting Monday night to discuss a plan to improve the lives of its residents. One of the issues top of mind is how the city deals with short-term rentals, through companies like Airbnb. “Short-term rentals have been a concern,’ says city council member Brandon Johnson. “Not because of how great they are access-wise for people. But many of our short-term rentals have been rented out for parties, especially recently, some parents will rent those out for their kids, which shouldn’t be happening.” Some of those parties have ended in violence. Johnson said that a shooting recently near College Hill is proof of problems. And in 2021, at Douglas and Oliver, one person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting at a party at an Airbnb. Because of that violence, the city is cracking down. It’s requiring licenses and rezoning to run a short term rental. “We have to be safer with our young people,” Johnson said. “Today is a different day and age, access to guns is a lot higher than when we were younger. So we’re going to look at that as a council, but definitely always want community input on that.” Johnson said that he expects the council to continue working on short-term rental policy. However, there are already some hoops to jump through to get up and running.
Source: KAKE – News
